3 Poèmes de Stéphane Mallarmé

Maurice Ravel

This piece, music married to poetry, provided the core motivation for presenting this performance. Through the voice of the soprano, every second of the composition suggests magical watercolors pouring through each note, each word, and through every gesture. The words are sonorous and the music poetic. In the first poem, the soprano floatson the texture, buoyed up by the river in the strings. The second poem creates the illusion of a constant ascent, drifting ever-upward on the currents of air. The third and final poem sparkles and glitters in bursts, sun-speckled rocks, like bits of light in a glass of wine.